Lew-Levy and Amir emphasize peer cultures as central to understanding cultural evolution and human life history, suggesting peer cultures as a key feature allowing for children’s active participation in cultural preservation and transformation. Challenging the adult-centric view of cultural evolution, the authors highlight children’s role in innovation and peer culture transmission and provide an overview of how social norms are largely learned from peers. However, the specific mechanism of the transmission process remains largely unexplored by the authors. Although Lew-Levy and Amir acknowledge horizontal transmission as supporting the spread of peer culture, it is important to emphasize that young children are equipped with the cognitive and social skills to disseminate and preserve cultural knowledge through peer teaching. We highlight some recent support for how selective information transmission and cultural variability impact children’s peer-teaching practices within and across societies. We argue that a deeper understanding of peer teaching is essential to understanding the transmission of peer culture.

Young children engage in spontaneous teaching without explicit instruction and respond to their learners’ performance to teach selectively (Strauss, Ziv, & Stein, Reference Strauss, Ziv and Stein2002). Not only do they consider their learners’ knowledge, goals, and competence, but they also adjust their teaching based on their learners’ knowledge states (e.g., Baer & Friedman, Reference Baer and Friedman2018; Bridgers, Jara-Ettinger, & Gweon, Reference Bridgers, Jara-Ettinger and Gweon2020; Davis-Unger and Carlson, Reference Davis-Unger and Carlson2008; Gweon & Schulz, Reference Gweon and Schulz2019; Ronfard & Corriveau, Reference Ronfard and Corriveau2016; Qiu et al., Reference Qiu, Ipek, Gottesman and Moll2024; Qiu et al., Reference Qiu, Park, Vite, Patall and Moll2025) and the extent to which the to-be-learned information could be acquired first-hand (Ronfard, Was, & Harris, Reference Ronfard, Was and Harris2016; Ronfard & Harris, Reference Ronfard and Harris2018). This adaptability ensures that cultural knowledge and social norms are transmitted effectively by allowing children to modify their explanations and the level of guidance they provide to peers. By the age of 4, children consistently choose and convey information that aligns with their learners’ needs (Bridgers et al., Reference Bridgers, Jara-Ettinger and Gweon2020; Gweon & Schulz, Reference Gweon and Schulz2019; Pueschel et al., Reference Pueschel, Ibrahim, Franklin, Skinner and Moll2023).

Children’s ability to effectively transmit cultural knowledge through peer teaching necessitates that they engage in mental state reasoning to infer the appropriate amount and specific content of the information provided to support effective learning of others (Bass et al., Reference Bass, Gopnik, Hanson, Ramarajan, Shafto, Wellman and Bonawitz2019; Corriveau, Ronfard, & Cui, Reference Corriveau, Ronfard and Cui2018; Jeong & Frye, Reference Jeong and Frye2025; Strauss & Ziv, Reference Strauss and Ziv2012; Strauss et al., Reference Strauss, Ziv and Stein2002; Ye, Heyman, & Ding, Reference Ye, Heyman and Ding2020). By tailoring their teaching based on their learners’ needs, children demonstrate an early capacity for perspective-taking and pedagogical sensitivity – skills that are essential for effective knowledge transmission. Beyond considering their learners’ epistemic states when making decisions about what and how much information to transmit to others, peer teaching behaviors may also be shaped by interpersonal relationships and social alliances. For instance, children may strategically withhold information when teaching outgroup members to maintain ingroup loyalty (e.g., Liberman & Shaw, Reference Liberman and Shaw2018; Misch, Over, & Carpenter, Reference Misch, Over and Carpenter2016). They may also be more motivated to elaborate, scaffold, or repeat explanations when interacting with friends or familiar peers than competitors or peers outside their social group (e.g., Over, Reference Over2016). Selective peer teaching fosters an environment where knowledge is not only passed down but also actively reshaped and reinforced within the peer group, allowing peer culture to remain dynamic and responsive to new social and environmental contexts.

Moreover, children’s peer-teaching practices are marked by within- and between-culture variability. For example, 6-year-old Japanese children are more likely than their German peers to choose to teach an ignorant learner (Kim et al., Reference Kim, Paulus, Sodian, Itakura, Ueno, Senju and Proust2018). Similarly, the type of teaching practices impacts US and Chinese children’s approach to their engagement in their own teaching. Three- to 7-year-old Chinese children differed in their teaching practices depending on whether they were exposed to “traditional” or “Westernized” teaching practices at school (Ye et al., Reference Ye, Cui, Ronfard and Corriveau2025). One contributing factor to these cultural differences is the pedagogical beliefs and practices children encounter at home and in school: often referred to as ethnotheories (Harkness & Super, Reference Harkness, Mavridis, Liu, Super and Jensen2015). Such exposure likely shapes children’s understanding of the basic process of teaching and the specific strategies they employ when engaging in peer teaching (e.g., LeVine et al., Reference LeVine, LeVine, Schnell-Anzola, Rowe and Dexter2012; Visscher, Reference Visscher2010).

These findings suggest that one reason peer cultures vary according to the social environment in which children are situated is because peer teaching is deeply embedded in children’s sociocultural contexts. Specifically, the children’s approach to peer teaching and interaction reflects the broader values emphasized in their communities. As just one example, collectivist cultures that value social harmony may encourage teaching that supports group cohesion (Liu & Elicker, Reference Liu and Elicker2005; Paine, Reference Paine1990; Pang & Richey, Reference Pang and Richey2007), whereas individualist cultures may emphasize autonomy and performance (Pang & Richey, Reference Pang and Richey2007; Qi, Reference Qi2022). Investigating such cultural differences in peer teaching offers a more nuanced understanding of peer culture as a dynamic and socially constructed system rather than a uniform developmental phenomenon.

In sum, understanding peer teaching is crucial for understanding the transmission of peer culture and cultural evolution. Prior research has provided valuable insights into how children teach, but much of this work has focused on structured or experimental settings. What remains underexplored are the ways in which children engage in teaching within naturalistic peer interactions – an important gap that the authors highlight, which future research would benefit to address. Although the authors offer a compelling argument for recognizing children as active participants in cultural transmission, their discussion largely overlooks the specific mechanisms through which peer culture is maintained and evolves. Peer teaching offers a clear lens to examine these processes. Through peer teaching, children not only transmit information but also reinforce and reshape peer culture in ways that align with their broader cultural context. Incorporating peer teaching into the study of peer cultures can enhance our understanding of the types of information children transmit and the specific strategies they use for cultural transmission – revealing the strategic and adaptive nature of peer culture. Recognizing this process of peer teaching is essential to capturing the complex role of children in actively sustaining and transforming culture. Future research should aim to investigate peer teaching as a key mechanism in the transmission and evolution of peer cultures.